“It’s fun coming back here for me and some other guys who are from the area. A lot of friends grew up watching the Red Wings. It’s a close drive from London to here, so I’ll have some family here and it’s one of the buildings I enjoy playing in. So it’s tough to see it go.”

On Steve Yzerman being one of his favorite players: “Any kid that plays in Ontario, you see the Wings all the time and he was their best player. So, a lot of the guys that I played with idolized him and he was one of the guys I watched when I was younger.”

Details of the first goal: “Somehow, I got on the ice with Jumbo. It was weird for me when I was first called up. I got called up with Jody Shelley and Brad Staubitz. So I was on the ice with Jumbo and somehow got the puck from Joe Callahan and just shot it between Osgood’s five-hole. … It was special that my family was here to watch it.”

Joe Thornton scored his 300th NHL goal on Feb. 22, 2011 at Detroit. He also assisted on Patrick Marleau’s OT winner in the second round of the 2010 playoffs on May 4 that gave the Sharks a 3-0 series lead.

“That was one of the better games I’ll remember playing here.”

Thornton on the arena: “Just a lot of great rivalries. Just myself personally, I think we played three playoff series against them when they were in the west. It’s a hard building to come in and play. They’ve always had great teams whenever I played against them, so, I have a lot of find memories and a lot of bad memories of this place. It’s a great old building, that’s for sure.”

Patrick Marleau on his 2010 OT winner: “When things like that happen, it’s a lot of fun. Played a lot of hard hockey games here, but being able to score an OT winner like that, it definitely sticks with you for the rest of your career.”

As some of these older building start to close down, any added emotions when you play what will probably be your final game here? “It’s one of those things where teams work hard to get an identity, and you know what type of game you’re going to get when you go into another team’s building when it’s been there for a while. I think you lose that as soon as you get into that new building. Everything’s fresh and the memories are new. You lose that part of it, but it’s one last chance to have some good memories in this building. Next year, it’ll be a chance to make some new ones.”

History between these two teams in this building. “There were some huge playoff rivalries, with series’ going back and forth. A lot great hockey has been played here.”

There have been more bad memories for the Sharks at Joe Louis Arena than good, though. The Red Wings own a 30-9-1-3 home record against San Jose.

Curtis Pashelka is the San Jose Sharks reporter for the Bay Area News Group. Prior to covering the Sharks, Curtis served as the high school sports editor for the East Bay. He also worked as a general assignment reporter covering motorsports, golf and college basketball, and as a backup writer on the A's, Giants and Warriors. He started at the organization in 2000 and spent close to eight years covering high school sports.